Semiconductor chips such as ICs and LSIs are formed in such a way that after a rear face of a semiconductor wafer W in which in each of a number of regions C divided by streets S as shown in FIG. 14 a circuit is formed is ground to a desired thickness, the semiconductor wafer is diced vertically and horizontally along the streets S.
When the rear face is ground, a front face side is held by a grinding machine; accordingly, in order to protect circuits formed on the front face, ordinarily a protective tape is stuck to the front face. Furthermore, when in order to make various kinds of electronic instruments smaller and thinner, a semiconductor wafer W is ground to a thickness as thin as for instance 100 μm or less, the ground semiconductor wafer W becomes soft like paper and difficult to handle. In order to make transport and so on thereafter easier, the front face of the semiconductor wafer W is stuck to a rigid support plate to support the semiconductor wafer W; that is, a device for making the transport and so on easier is applied.
However, when the semiconductor wafer thinned by the grinding of the rear face is diced by use of a dicing machine, the semiconductor wafer has to be peeled off from the support plate and to be stuck to a dicing tape; accordingly, in peeling or sticking, the semiconductor wafer is likely to be damaged. Particularly, in a semiconductor wafer of which thickness is made extremely thin such as 100 μm or less, or 50 μm or less by grinding, it is extremely difficult to reattach it without causing damage.
Furthermore, in an invention disclosed in, for instance, JP-A 10-284449, the grinding and dicing are performed with a front face of a semiconductor wafer stuck to a holding tape, and accordingly, there is no need of reattaching when switching from grinding to dicing; however, when the semiconductor chips are peeled off from the dicing tape after the dicing, the semiconductor chips are likely to be damaged such as by cracking or breaking, deformation and so on.
In this connection, the present invention intends to inhibit the semiconductor wafer and semiconductor chips from being damaged, deformed and so on when a semiconductor wafer is ground and the semiconductor wafer is diced to manufacture semiconductor chips.